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Saturday, July 16, 2016

Islamic State on Saturday claimed responsibility for the deadly truck attack in the French city of Nice, saying the assault was a response to calls by the extremist group to target those nations allied against it.

Despite the assertion of responsibility, the nature and scope of the Sunni Muslim extremist group’s involvement in Thursday’s attack, which killed 84 people and wounded scores more, was unclear.

French authorities said Saturday they had found no evidence of ties between terror groups and the man who carried out the assault in Nice, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian man living in the city. Prosecutors also said they had little doubt the militant group had, at the very least, inspired the attack.

In its statement Saturday quoting an unidentified security source and carried by its affiliated Amaq news agency, the Sunni Muslim extremist group said, the Bastille Day attack “was carried out by one of the soldiers of the Islamic State, and the operation was done in response to calls to target nations of coalition states that are fighting the Islamic State.”

The statement was reported by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity.

France is one of 66 participants in the U.S.-led military coalition fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, according to the U.S. State Department. U.S. President Barack Obama announced the formation of the coalition in September 2014.

On the internet and social media, supporters of Islamic State cheered the truck attack by Lahouaiej Bouhlel, but as in some previous claims of responsibility by the militant group, no clear link to the group has been established.

U.S. and European officials were running checks on financial, social media and internet communication networks to try to determine whether Lahouaiej Bouhlel had accomplices or received foreign support...